After encountering the box turtle, I sat down in the trail to wait for it to emerge for a photograph. Amos preceded to sniff around, sit on an ant colony, and was stung a few times. I believe he blamed me for the pain, because he sadly sat between 5 and 10 m from me, waiting to move on.

For the first time in the wild, I came across an Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina carolina at Cascade Springs Nature Preserve. I, of course, have a pet box turtle (Rocky) adopted from the Leff’s at Kent State University (who had adopted it from a former graduate student… who had taken it in from a middle school student of hers, I believe), but I had never encountered a wild one. While it was exciting, and I did get to see it exposed out of the shell, Amos was with me and scared the turtle into hiding, so I couldn’t get a descent shot.

In keeping with our naming ‘theme’, we pronounce his name as you might in Spanish; it’s ‘ahh’ then ‘mos’ similar to the ‘o’ in “most”. This way, we can say “Vamos Amos!”

Anyway, he’s another 2 year-old dachshund mix (clearly a mix… possibly of a chuhuahua…like a long chuhuaaaaaaaaaahua) we picked up at the Atlanta Humane Society and has already grown to be a part of our family. Here, he wades at Cascade Spring Nature Preserve, waiting for me to move so he can reach dry land.

In the apartment, on the leash, around people, around other dogs, and even around feeding times, Éva is generally calm and alert to the point that she seems depressed and fearful still. But, when she encounters sand, and occasionally a large, grassy field without other people around, something clicks and she becomes an excitable dog, running in circles with her tail between her legs.